h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

rather than clog the "America is NOT at war" thread with this, I thought it probably deserved a thread of its own. I'd especially be interested in hearing from researchers in China and Japan.

As anyone watching the news is aware by now, there have been a number of large demonstrations in China protesting Japan's approval for use in schools of history textbooks the Chinese say gloss over or deny Japanese war crimes before and during WW2, and Japan's efforts to gain a permanent seat on the UN security council.
Rock, paintbombs, eggs and plastic bottles have been thrown at Japanese diplomatic missions and japanese related businesses in China, cars have been overturned and a few people have been beaten up. The Japanese govt is demanding an apology.

for some background check these out

http://kevinswoodshed.blogspot.com/2005/02/revisionism-and-denial-daily-yomiuri.html

http://kevinswoodshed.blogspot.com/2005/04/historical-revisionism-misinformation.html

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&gl=us&ie=UTF-8&q=Anti-Japan+demonstrations&btnG=Search+News

Well I don't like bad history but I don't know anything about the area so I can't really comment on that.

But it seems a silly thing to be getting so worked up about. Smells of media hype to me.

Also I take note that Japan is at the moment, while still nationalistic in a big way, also extremely pacifistic. China is not.

Whilst I am a huge fan of the Japanese in general, one of the things that has to be recognized about them is that they had an appalling record of human rights abuses both in the lead up to and during WWII.

The long rumoured (and now, finally acceptred) existence of Unit 731 is a blot on the Japanese character which is barely acknowledged and without an apology it is difficult to see that genuine remorse is felt.

Experiments with what would now be called WMDs in Manchuria (Smallpox and nerve gases were tested on both civilian populations and prisoners of war) as well as horrific 'medical' experiments were carried out throughout the period between 1935 and the end of the war.

China were not the only ones to suffer in this way, either. Korea also was the site for truly horrific abuses.

The current anti Japanese campaign is, I beleive, being whipped up over the internet in China. The real politique reason is to scupper Japans progression to full membership of the UN Security Council. Once there Japan will have a bigger voice in criticising Chinese foreign and human rights policies. China doesn't want that.

I find myself in agreement with BS here. The Japanese have, for the most part, brushed the events of the expansionist Imperial Japan period under the carpet.

I think that one of the reasons for this is that post-war Japanese society doesn't see itself as having anything to do with that period - the Emperor as a living god etc etc - so why should it apologise. This is not a particularly helpful attitude to take in comparison to say how the Germans have dealt with their past.

The Japanese Prime Minister has now apologised so it will be interesting to see what excuse the Chinese now use to ramp the anti Japan argument.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/japan/story/0,7369,1466514,00.html

The Chinese themselves have brushes aspects of history under the carpet. I don't know if the history taught in schools is more accurate now, but friends of mine on a recent tour knew much more about the events in Tiannamen square than their native guide.

They've apologised now? Oh OK.

Well that's a step in the right direction then.

It continually perplexes me how a society which is often seen as being one of understatement, politeness and quietude (except where influenced by Western society) could have been so brutal in the recent past. I really need to find out more about Japan's pre-war history to find out if their current societal norms bear any resemblance to its past or is a reaction to having a couple of cities destroyed by A-bombs. I can't see how really, and ancient Japanese cultural icons such as the tea ceremony, zen gardens, and the various Japanese arts like bonsai, origami etc certainly suggest a long-standing connection with things spiritual.

Perhaps it's just human nature that in those without severe personal and spiritual training, all that suppression has to come out somehow.

Although japan has had the odd turbulent period, and violence is certainly not unheard of in historical Japan, all I've ever read about the historyy of the Pacific and Japan in particular suggests that in actual fact the abnormality was the period of rapid military expansion and 'international' (as opposed to internal)aggression between 1900 and 1945.

For what it's worth.

Concerning the tea ceremony and many of the other Japanese arts it should be remembered that it was a fundamental part of Samurai culture: cut off heads in the morning, have tea in the afternoon.

A gross over-simplification of

a) the Samurai/Bushido code/way of life

b) the causes of Japanese Imperialist ambitions in the first half of the 20th Century

All in the space of one sentence.

Regrettably i don't have the time to post a sensible rebuttal.

b) I didn't say anything about Japanese Imperialist ambitions in the first half of the 20th Century.

a) I wasn't trying to describe the Samurai/Bushido code/way of life.



the Japanese Tea Ceremony was an important part of Samurai culture.

And, okay, the decapitation in the morning and tea in the afternoon was a bit of a silly statement. The point I was trying to make is that the medieval Japanese culture out of which modern Japanese culture has grown (like medieval European culture out of which modern European culture has grown) was a complicated combination of high art and high violence.

That's all. Just trying to offer a bit of help to Oojakapiv with his question 'It continually perplexes me how a society which is often seen as being one of understatement, politeness and quietude (except where influenced by Western society) could have been so brutal in the recent past.'

>>The Chinese themselves have brushes aspects of history under the carpet. I don't know if the history taught in schools is more accurate now, but friends of mine on a recent tour knew much more about the events in Tiannamen square than their native guide<<

For me, that gets right to the point here. The Chinese - by which it's pretty clear is meant the Chinese government, since they have no problem clamping down on, incarcerating indefinitely and finally murdering demonstrators when they *don't* approve of the sentiments being expressed and since the people currently involved in protesting these new Japanese textbooks certainly didn't hear about them through a free press - are supposedly objecting to Japan's reluctance to address its past.

Which it should (and, today at least, apparently has).

But these textbooks have been approved for use in schools by a democratically elected government and however troubling that may be, it doesn't make these textbooks holy writ or beyond criticism (as they would be in Chinese schools). If teachers wish to protest, they can. If Japanese citizens wish to research alternative versions of history, they can walk into any library or go online (freely). When China can boast the same, then it can start objecting.

The initial post was interested in responses from Japanese and Chinese researchers. There are plenty of the former around here and I hope you will get a varied set of responses, if those researchers happen on this thread. As for the latter, you'll be a long time waiting: the internet is policed in China like nowhere else on earth.

Exactly the problem. By all accounts the fracturing of the samurai code following the 'westernization' of Japanese culture led to a vastly different mind set.

What happened in the early years of the twentieth century has little if nothing to do with what had happened during the time of the samurai.

It wasn't so much cultural growth as cultural transplanting.

fair enough, Blues.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because China is in the wrong now doesn't mean that Japan was in the right then.

Nor has it been historically easy to obtain information on this aspect of Japanese history. I've seen first hand examples of Japanese popular culture that choose to ignore the fact that they Japanese even sided with the Axis powers.

Unit 731, for example was officially denied by the Japanese government up until about 5-10 years ago.

There are a multiude of reasons why 731 was a forbidden subject, but the important thing is that just because a gvernement is democratically elected doesn't mean they can't restrictt information and access to it.

Blues - I agree; nor would I want to gloss over the fact that the Japanese government has had a terrible track record in this respect.

But as you youself point out with the case of Unit 731, there's great reluctance, then pressure brought to bear by campaigners and influence both external and internal and things do happen, albeit very slowly - in other words things are open to change and revision and to pressure being brought to bear in Japan in a way they aren't in China.

When is the Chinese government going to dicuss the Cultural Revolution in the same way, for instance?

So a democratic goverment certainly can restrict information, but it has a much harder job doing it. The Chinese government seems to see no reason why it should ever be otherwise.

I agree that two wrongs don't make a right. What I was getting at is that the Chinese government should perhaps put their own house in order before making such demands of other countries.

"I agree that two wrongs don't make a right. What I was getting at is that the Chinese government should perhaps put their own house in order before making such demands of other countries."

It's not that simple. The fact that the Chinese government has such dirty hands means a lot of people will be sympathetic to the Japanese. However, the anger about these textbooks is not merely engineered by the Chinese government (although they doubtless fan the flames). China suffered badly at the hands of Japanese imperial troops in the 1930s and 40s and these textbooks effectively leave-out or underplay such periods of Japanese history. And it's not harmless - the Japanese rightwing have been trying to rehabilitate their past for a long time. A popular film in Japan a few years ago was called (I think) 'Not Guilty' and lionised the far-right wartime Japanese Prime Minister General Tojo. It's also worth noting that Western POWs who were abused by Japanese troops have never been officially apologised to and never compensated.